Disrespecting the Target

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contribution of other actors. In the report to the religious NGO donor, the case organisation states how the donor were able to assist them in this project besides only providing the funds:

“By involving itself in actions and developing and strengthening collaboration and networking by linking us with other organizations working in the same field and so developing referral systems and reintegration choices

An advocacy role: By disseminating the information on the situation, obstacles and mechanisms at international level and helping on [making] changes in Laos.

A role in sharing and developing projects on trafficking and women issues in general because [the donor] is flexible, see the importance of such fields actions and can adapt plans according to [how] the situation changes.” (Monitoring report A to donor 3, 2009)

The donor has their own office in the region so it is clear that they should have been able to provide important contacts for the organisation. One of the interviewees also specified that this donor provided the organisation with contacts to local NGOs in Laos, which were

partnering with that donor. According to the website of the donor, they are partnering with two international religious organisations which are active in Laos, however, there is no mention of any local organisations. Though the lack of contact with local organisations is likely due to Laos being a communist state.

One of the religious partners of the donor is mentioned in the reports of the case organisation, usually in the context of an informal referral system. However, they are not mentioned particularly often. They have assisted the case organisation with the protection and assistance to trafficked persons, but it seems that they are focusing their work towards other organisations in Laos, as quoted by employee A above. There is also no indication that the case organisation was dependent on the donor’s partner, to conduct the case NGO’s work.

however, this was the case with the organisations mentioned by employee A, no interviewee mentioned the donor’s partner when they were asked to describe their work with external partners.

3.2.1.2. Disrespecting the Target Group

The organisation also mentions another event in which the influence of the donor took a negative turn, in regards to the organisation’s relations to other actors. However, in this case it was the community development project that suffered. In a report from 2015 to another

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“During the field visit we conducted with [the donor], the national coordinator of [the donor] had an attitude that created troubles to our community leaders in [Myanmar]. The leaders have then informed [us] that they don’t want the said coordinator to come again to their communities. We have informed [the donor’s]

headquarter and proposed alternatives solutions [sic]. However, we have not seen any change from [the donor’s] side to attend to solve the problem. Consequently, in order to prevent from such incident [happening] in the future and in the spirit of protecting our target groups, we decided that we will not renew any collaboration with [the donor] in the future.” (Monitoring report A to donor 7, 2015)

The organisation’s work in Myanmar follows a similar pattern as in Laos, in the way that it is focused on establishing collaboration with other organisations in order to implement its projects. The difference is that the collaboration in Myanmar are less formal, and the partner organisations themselves consist of communities, and community leaders. The purpose is to establish a network of watchdogs who are able to alert the organisation when someone from the community goes missing, and to facilitate a safe repatriation when trafficked persons are repatriated to their community. Some communities were developed to be a part of a formal team, as described above, working with trafficked persons and risk groups. The NGO also organises training and educational activities with the communities. When asked about the event described above, an employee describes the situation in greater detail:

“They had recruited a new Thai coordinator who was supposed to take care of all Thai partners of [the donor] and they need [to conduct] a field visit, and they came with two persons from [the donor] so from their country (…) the group with my team went to the community and I couldn’t remember where but I think it was in (…) and the coordinator, the local, the Thai local coordinator had spoken with them in a not polite way, a shocking way

(…) I don’t know I was not here, but they speak [sic] like, [the coordinator] spoke that, the, “actually the parents are selling their daughter to prostitution” or something like that, so the people in the community start to cry. And so, it’s just to show how, was, how it was strong. The words [the coordinator] use, and the [donor]

haven’t noticed it, because it was in Thai.

(…) the community was very angry against [sic] this person, and angry about us so we sent a letter of apologise, saying that we have prepared them to come to the

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community, but next time, we prepare much better than that, because we did not expect it to happen like that, and the community said it was no problem with you, but this person, we don’t want [the coordinator] to come anymore to our community. So we have written to [the donor] and explained what happened and have told them that for this reason we would like to, we requested them to change the coordinator. And said that we can’t work with this person anymore because the community rejected [the coordinator] anyway.

(…) Now [the donor] was protecting one person who did bad things in the community and the, I share it like that, I said if it is this case, it will be difficult to continue work with [the donor] knowing that you are protecting a person who are doing something bad to the community and it is against the development. (…) the regional coordinator [of the donor] took it strongly, saying that “you are accusing [the donor] to, to make bad work into [sic] the community, and in that case you write, we will have [a]

problem of collaboration”. And then, the head of the head of the head contacted me saying the same, “Oh don’t worry, forget the story we are happy with the work of [the case organisation], lets continue working”, something like that.

(…) And that started for, (…) and nothing has changed since, so, and they wrote me that it was not the partner, so us, has no decision to take on whom will be the

coordinator, and that policy was that, and so we said: “We have two projects and we will finish the two projects and then we will not work with you anymore”. So we did it like that.

(…) and I understood that it was the partnership, that was the way we were seeing it, [a] partnership. We were working together, it was not you, you are here, and us, we are here [interviewee holding hands at different levels], and you are the one who tell us what to do.” (Employee B at the case NGO, 2018)

It is clear from the description above that the organisation took this event very seriously as the community made it clear that it had jeopardised their relationship with the

organisation. The coordinator managed the donor’s operations in several countries in the region, so the organisation was also concerned that the coordinator from the donor would undermine the relationship that the organisation had established with other communities in the region. Since the donor refused to change the coordinator, despite that the NGO reported

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the coordinator’s misconduct and requested a replacement, they concluded it was too risky for the to continue working with this donor.

It is also relevant to point out that employee B perceived that the donor viewed their relationship as hierarchical, while the NGO saw it as a partnership on equal terms. This may be the reason for why the donor refused to change the coordinator. Employee B was visibly disappointed about the behaviour of the donor, which tried to not acknowledge that there was a conflict between them. Even if the donor had reacted by becoming angry, it would have been an acknowledgement that there existed a problem between them and provided a reference point from which to work from, according to the employee.